


Accidentally in Love

by Cal (caltastic)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Class Differences, Conversational Swearing, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-06 16:15:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4228464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caltastic/pseuds/Cal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern AU, inspired by too much Real Genius and too many romcoms. Evelyn Trevelyan, a PhD candidate and all-around science nerd, meets Cullen Rutherford, a civil engineering major on the GI Bill, when he shows up for her tutoring session. If Evie didn't have bad luck, she'd have no luck at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Brighter Than the Sun

When Evelyn showed up for her Thursday tutoring session, she discovered that the study room was already in use and the man inside was _certainly_ not her student. He was obviously both way too old and way too hot; the folks she saw tended toward shy freshmen who never developed study skills or the occasional desperate burnout. She eased the door open a crack, knocking on the side as she did. "Hey, sorry, I've got this room booked from three to five. I was just late, it's not actually free."

The interloper looked up at her and Evelyn finally understood what a word like _arresting_ meant in practice. Honey-brown eyes like that were absolutely unfair, and she felt a twinge of disappointment that she didn't have free time to introduce herself, maybe get his number. 

"Hi -- Evelyn, right? The tutor? I'm Cullen." He unfolded from behind the table and got to his feet, and that was six feet of at least two different gym memberships in an impeccably pressed white oxford and khakis while Evelyn felt like a small, dirty, dripping rodent with stringy, tangled hair and mud on her chin. The world was cruel. So very, very cruel. 

He stuck out his hand, and she just stared at it in mute horror for a moment before fumbling to shake it. "I'm sorry," Evelyn said, slinging off her backpack to drip on the floor beside the table. " _You're_ my Chem 101? I know I'm late, but I really thought it was just like ten minutes, not ten years." She gave a weak laugh and wanted to crawl into a hole and die. 

To her surprise, Cullen looked embarrassed at this, his cheeks pinking a little as he rubbed a hand along the back of his neck. "Uh, I got started late."

"Oh hell," Evelyn said, slumping into a chair with a horrifying squishy noise. God, on top of everything else she was pretty sure her shoes were totally ruined. "Now I feel like even more of an asshole. I'm sorry, you're just not what I expected."

There was an awkward silence. Cullen slipped back into his seat, and he looked just as uncomfortable. "No, it's fine, I understand. I'm not -- I only need the one chem class to graduate so I kind of just let it sit, you know?" He shrugged, still looking strangely bashful. "You're not really what I was expecting, either."

Evelyn tried to engage her most pleasant, professional expression while she shrugged out of her wet jacket, but still felt more than a little off-balance. "Would you mind if we started over? Hi, I'm Evie, I'm really sorry I'm late. I promise that's not normal for me, but I got caught in the storm."

He grinned at her, and when he smiled the scar on his lip gave his mouth a rakish tilt that changed the entire look of his face. "You're forgiven. Besides, I'm desperate." His eyes widened and he choked out an awkward laugh. "Uh. I mean. For chemistry." His entire face reddened then, and Evelyn was startled to see that it made him look much younger. "...The course. Jesus, can we start over-over? This is ridiculous. I'm ridiculous."

She burst out laughing. Finally she started to feel like herself again, even with muddy splashes all up and down her pants and rainwater frizzing out her hair. "You're outstanding, is what you are. Thank you, I feel much better now." Evelyn unzipped her backpack and pulled out a stylus, her tablet, and the class syllabus. "You good to go?"

"Yeah, that -- I did that on purpose. Sure. Right. Good." Cullen ran his hand through his hair and then started fiddling with his pencil, flicking it through his long, tapered fingers with a speedy grace that she found shamefully enthralling. "So, uh, overview first?" He slid his chair around the table to better see her work, and when his elbow brushed against hers her breath stuttered in a way that felt so appallingly obvious that she tried to smother it under a cough.

As they worked through the first sections of the syllabus together, Evelyn found herself constantly distracted by little things: his handwriting, neat, heavy slashes filling every inch of a page; the way his head cocked when she talked, like she was the only thing worth listening to; his absurdly, unfairly long eyelashes and the way they fanned across his cheeks when he looked down at his work on the table. She loved tutoring, since it gave her all the gratification of sharing her knowledge with people without any of the bureaucratic bullshit and crushing paperwork of actual classroom instruction, but the level of focus it was taking to maintain her professionalism in the face of his distractingly corded forearms was exhausting. 

Five o'clock came and went and neither one of them noticed until the next reservation knocked on the door and shooed them out. Cullen got to his feet as soon as she did, and Evelyn couldn't help but be charmed by his manners. While she packed up her things and shuddered at her still-damp jacket, he rocked back on his heels and shoved a hand in his pocket. "So, uh. Same time next week?" he asked.

"No, I'll be on time next week," Evelyn muttered darkly. She paused in the middle of sliding her bag over her shoulder and narrowed her eyes speculatively. "Hey, actually -- " she gestured at his notebook and pencil. "May I?" When he nodded, she scribbled her name and number on the corner of the first page, trying to play it smooth even when her shoes made another of those terrible doom-infused squelches when she leaned on the table. "That's my cell. In case you need anything before next week." A small voice in the back of her head chanted at her to stop talking, but her mouth wasn't paying attention. "Or, you know, ever." The small voice got louder, and some catastrophic failure of her self-preservation instincts bubbled up. "When you think thermodynamics, think of me!" 

She hid that particularly shameful excuse for small talk behind a nervous laugh and a cheery wave, and then slipped out of the room before he had a chance to call her on it. It wasn't fleeing the scene of her crime, she reasoned; it was merely a tactical retreat.

At least there was wine at home.

She discovered once she got there that there wasn't any _good_ wine at home. "What vengeful gremlin replaced all my shiraz with goddamned ChocoVin?"

The refrigerator door slammed at the edges of her hearing, followed immediately by the hiss of a beer bottle opening. "A blonde one, about yea high."

Evelyn sighed and climbed out of the remains of her wine cabinet in the pantry, bringing the three bottles of horrible fake wine with her to dump in the sink. "Of course it was. No one but Sera would ever have brought this garbage into our house." She frowned with distaste at the bottlecap he'd left on her counter and pitched it into the trash with a pointed look. "Don't you have your own kitchen to raid, Varric?"

He grinned. "Yours is way better stocked than mine. Besides, that vengeful gremlin wanted me to tell you that she's got an installation planned that needed a wine bath, something about a fake communion or some shit, so she left you 'a chocolate bribe.'" He made exaggerated air quotes with the bottle opener. "Fuck if I know, that girl is terrifying and I'm not about to ask too close. What do you care, anyway? Are you even allowed to drink Australian wine?" 

With a roll of her eyes, Evelyn upended a bottle of chalky brown liquid into the garbage disposal. "You're planning to tattle to my mother about the contents of my liquor cabinet?"

"Are you shitting me?" Varric barked out a laugh, then took a swig of the beer he'd appropriated from her refrigerator. "That would require talking to your mother, and I'm pretty sure she would eat me alive."

Evelyn wrinkled her nose and then set the rinsed bottles aside for recycling before wiping her hands on a dishtowel. "She would never. You'd be way too many calories." She leaned back against the counter and scrubbed her hands through her hair, trying to finger-comb out some of the tangles running in a downpour had given her. 

"Hey, speaking of calories, you're hosting the game tonight." Varric pulled finger-guns at her with the hand not holding beer and gave an exaggeratedly swag wink. "I know you're tired of me taking your money, so I won't make you play if you don't want to. The gang'll be over in an hour, though." 

He was charming even when importuning, and Evelyn had neither the desire nor the energy to deny him. "That better mean you're getting dinner, Varric. It's already been a shitty day without setting my eyebrows on fire over some ironic hipster casserole." She briefly considered offering to cook anyway, but decided against making the effort when she needed a hot shower and at least half an hour of peace. "Why can't you invite people to your place for once? Hint: it's the next door over."

"Because even when Buttercup bathes herself in wine you're a neat freak, and my place is a total sty." He shrugged, and Evelyn figured that was as close as he'd get to admitting he left his manuscripts scattered everywhere and didn't want anyone to get their hands on them. "Also, I'll bribe you with shiraz."

"Ugh, fine, but it'd better be good shiraz." She knew when she was beaten, and good wine was her kryptonite. "Who's coming?"

"Most of the usuals, and a new guy I met at the bar last week." Varric ticked off mumbled names on his fingers. "Just the five of us, counting the new guy, who's why we're playing on a Thursday. He was way too smart to be bouncing in that shithole, so I made friends and invited him over. You'll like him, he's totally your type."

Evelyn's eyebrows shot sky-high. "What do you mean, my type?"

"You know, all shoulders and scruffy and dimples and shit." Varric sketched out a shape in the air, and she acknowledged the dimensions with half a nod and a shrug; he wasn't wrong, particularly about the shoulders. "And nice. I know how you feel about _nice_."

How she felt about _nice_ was about as up for discussion as feelings on her mother were. "You have got to stop adopting strays to hook me up with, because that never ends well for anyone. But oh Christ, that reminds me -- the kid I had for tutoring today? Wasn't a kid. Mister Chemistry was gorgeous _and polite_." She shuddered in remembered mortification, eyes screwed tight shut and nose wrinkled up. "I wanted to climb him like a tree, it was horrible."

"You and I have drastically different definitions of horrible."

"I had to be professional!" She widened her eyes and pushed imaginary spectacles up her nose to demonstrate, and was a little gratified when he laughed; laughing made her horrorshow of embarrassment slightly more liveable. "Talking about balancing reactions without trying to lick his forearms was absolutely exhausting. It didn't help that I was all straggly and covered in storm-filth."

"That explains your hair." Varric actually looked relieved, as if for her sake he'd been concerned that she'd considered a truly unpleasant change in her personal style.

Evelyn groaned, face tilted upward to ask the heavens for forbearance. "I also ruined my favorite boots and was twenty minutes late. Worst first impression _ever_."

"Could've been worse, could've been like that guy you tripped over and spilled marinara on. That was a hell of a night." He shook his head and laughed when she groaned at him. "What's the statute of limitations on that comedy of errors? It's been three years, surely you'll let me put it in a book sometime soon."

"You can put it in a book as soon as you _stop talking about it._ " 

He laughed again, that big booming delighted rumble that never failed to illustrate why and how the man had so very, very many friends. "How could I stop talking about it? You managed to make falling ass over teakettle look like some John Woo shit, it was fucking awesome. With that experience in your back pocket, surely your big wonderbrain managed to turn a little thing like a thunderstorm to your advantage."

"Are you kidding?" Evelyn's answering laugh then was only slightly pained, as even getting a few hours distance from the incident and the promise of good wine and company was indeed settling her down; at that rate, she might even be able to face Mister Chemistry for their next session without choking on her own tongue in shame. "My big wonderbrain thinks only in math and has no idea what to do with big eyes and bigger biceps. I totally shut down and told him to think of me when he thought of thermodynamics."

"That's unfortunate."

"I gave him my number anyway." She grinned, triumphant in that at least. 

He saluted her with his beer bottle. "Good on you, princess."

"I'm going to go scrub off this bullshit day in an extremely hot shower." Evelyn held up a hand when Varric opened his mouth and he obligingly let whatever inevitable filthy innuendo he was going to fire back at her die away. "Hang on. I will happily play hostess for you tonight, but if and only if whatever fried nightmare you order in for dinner doesn't make me regret my life in the morning. Deal?"

He looked positively angelic when he agreed that dinner would be totally safe, and that was when Evelyn knew she was in trouble and it was time to cut her losses. She escaped to a much-needed shower and forty minutes of peaceful primping, and when she emerged back into the land of the living her house was full of light, laughter, and, judging by the noise level, entirely too much liquor. It was _glorious_.

There was already a pile of quarters in the center of her dining room table, and Evelyn wriggled her way around the room to say hello to Varric's group of boisterous drinking buddies. Play paused while she made her greetings, the cards all stacked neatly on the table. "Evie, darling! May I deal you in? Bull's sworn not to cheat if you swear not to count the cards." 

She laughed and held her hands up in surrender. "Not on your life, Dorian. I was promised total wallet purity tonight as long as I stayed on drink-mixing fetch-and-carry duty."

Dorian's eyebrows rose. "If you think I am letting you mix my drinks you are _sorely_ mistaken. No one has forgotten your miserly ways, Evie," he said, shaking a finger at her. The rest of the table broke into laughter. "So I will be providing my own liquor, thank you." He slipped out of his chair and kissed her cheek as he passed her to the kitchen. 

"Absolutely no one needs that much hard liquor in a cocktail, Mister Pavus," Evelyn called after him. "When the recipe calls for one part vodka, that doesn't mean _one entire bottle._ "

The cards stayed on the table while Dorian fixed his drink and Evelyn regaled them with stories of her afternoon mishap. A few minutes later, the doorbell rang, almost immediately after Varric's entirely too-annoying text message chime vibrated on the tabletop. "And that's my cue. Hostess time for the new guy, right?" When Varric saluted, she slid out of the dining room and skidded around the corner on slippery stocking feet -- which ran her right into Dorian, and, more tragically, Dorian's extremely large, sticky, and stainingly red-orange cocktail. 

Dorian tried to help her clean up the damage, with some hastily applied paper towels and a well-placed application of sudden and devout prayer, but it was futile. The doorbell rang again, Varric's text chime echoing behind it. "Oh, for fuck's sake." Evelyn tried to peel her shirt away from her skin before it started to stick. "God, leave it, I'll get the door and just change after. It's not like this day could get any worse."

She left the carnage of Dorian's cocktail behind her and opened the door all prepared to joke off her fun new fashion accessory with the new guy, but immediately all blood drained from her face. "Oh no. No. This cannot be happening to me." 

There on the stoop stood her Mister Chemistry, still as pressed and polished as he'd been earlier that afternoon while her entire upper body was covered in a dripping mess of tequila and grenadine. He was even wearing a tie. _A tie._ "Um. Hi?" He cleared his throat, and gave her a slow-burning grin that set her insides simmering. 

For once, Evelyn and her big wonderbrain were in complete agreement: she looked down at herself, back up at him, then screamed and slammed the door in his face. "Varric!" she hollered, her voice desperate and shrill.

He appeared at her side much more quickly than was probably prudent, considering all of the alcohol already involved. "You okay? What's wrong, was it not him?"

"Oh no, it's totally him. It's him, I have liquor in my hair, and I look like I've been shot by a muppet." Evelyn took a deep breath, clutching white-knuckled at the hem of her ruined shirt with one hand and keeping the door in place with the other. "If you did this on purpose I swear by all that is holy _no one will ever find your body._ "

"Of course I did it on purpose. I told you I thought he -- " Varric stopped. Something in her eyes must have tipped him off. "Ah. Thermodynamic tree?"

"Thermodynamic tree," she echoed through clenched teeth.

Infuriatingly, he started to laugh. "Well, you can't say I don't know your type, princess." He gently pried her fingers off the doorknob and made a shooing motion. "Go get cleaned up. I'll take care of this, tell him your evil twin had a psychotic break. It'll be fine." 

For the second time that day, Evelyn fled, and after another forty minutes of a shower and primping that was much less peaceful and far more cowardly hiding, she slunk back out to the card game to face the rest of what was rapidly turning out to be the most humiliating day of her life. 

The new guy -- yes, still Cullen, it hadn't been a hallucination or stress-induced fever dream, though the onset of one was seeming statistically likely -- looked up from his cards when she slunk back into the room like a skittish cat. "So I find myself thinking of thermodynamics," he murmured after he caught her eye, and it sounded enough like random musing that only Varric had to cover a surprised laugh in a fake cough. 

Evelyn realized that she had two choices: spontaneously combust of abject ignominy, or suck it up and brazen it out. While the former definitely had appeal, Cullen's quirked grin tugged at her in challenge and that scar on his lip looked like a dare that she couldn't resist. "Oh, to hell with this," she said darkly, and wedged the empty chair between Varric and Cullen, sliding into the seat and managing -- barely -- to avoid bumping Cullen's knee with hers. "Deal me in. And I'm totally counting, and you can't even stop me."

The cards flew around the table hand after hand, and while Evelyn's pile of quarters grew steadily, Cullen also held his own. He was a methodical, thoughtful player who balanced an aggressive betting style with well-managed risks, and by the time the others had all tapped out hours later she discovered that she'd actually been enjoying herself. Equally surprising was how she'd managed to pass the evening without even once verging close to losing control of her mouth and spitting out something mortifying about how utterly distracting it was when he folded the cuffs of his sleeves up to his elbows. 

When it was clear the party was winding down, Cullen slid his pile of quarters back to the center of the table amid good-natured groans from the others and made his goodbyes with consummate graciousness -- he'd loosened his tie at some point, but he was still _wearing a tie_ , and he even passed handshakes around the table. _Nice_ , Varric mouthed at her with a pointedly suggestive look, and she rolled her eyes. 

She did take the hint, though, and caught Cullen's attention with a hand on his arm before Varric could say anything else. "I'll walk you out?" The words came out with a bit more hesitance than she wanted, but she made up for it by kicking Varric in the shin before he could speak up and then felt a little better.

Cullen grinned down at her, his scarred lip quirking the corner of his mouth up in a way that did funny things to the pit of her stomach. She managed to slip her hand into the crook of his elbow like it was almost natural, and led him to the door. "You know, after the screaming I had a really nice time," he said when they paused in the foyer.

"Oh god," slipped out of Evelyn's mouth before she could bury her face in her hands, and she forced out a sickly laugh. "You must think I'm the hugest asshole, after this afternoon and the thing and the door and, okay, you know what? It's just today. Today is cursed. I hereby put a moratorium on all further Thursdays. We will henceforth skip straight to Friday, and just have Friday twice."

He looked down at his arm where her hand had been, and then ran his hand through his hair. His crooked smile went from sinful to downright sheepish. "I don't think I can get behind that. If we skip Thursdays, I wouldn't get to -- I mean, what will I do about chemistry? That's just -- um." Cullen cleared his throat, and the kitchen lights glinted off his fair hair as he shifted his weight a little from foot to foot. "So you and Varric -- you share a place?"

With widening eyes, Evelyn caught a lifeline of implications and stammered out a correction. "You mean, like, together? Good god, no, not if he paid me." And apparently just being around this man sent her system into overdrive shock. "I mean not that I -- I don't -- if you -- oh for god's sake." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, fanning her hands in front of her blazing face. It took reciting the periodic table backwards in her head to regain the shreds of her composure, but once she did she at least had the ability to meet his eyes without so much as a shake. "So here is the thing. You are disconcertingly attractive, and I would like to get to know you better like a normal person while pretending all my idiot bullshit never happened. Could I take you to dinner? Maybe this weekend?" 

Cullen took a step closer and picked up her hand, giving it a brief squeeze and her another lopsided, cheeky grin that made wearing a tie to a beer-soaked poker game look perfectly normal and even more disconcertingly attractive. "To be honest, I find your idiot bullshit rather charming." The tips of his ears flushed a little, and at least the universe was fair enough to let Evelyn see that he wasn't as unaffected as it might otherwise seem. "I'm free Saturday. Pick you up around seven?"

Relief warred with anticipation and Evelyn knew it was lighting up her face. "That sounds awesome." So awesome, in fact, that she fumbled the door a little when she pulled it open for him and didn't even care.

"I'll be looking forward to it." He gave an awkward little hand-raised excuse for a wave on his way out, and Evelyn watched him all the way down the front walk with the first relaxed breath it felt like she'd had all day.

Varric, bless him, was in the kitchen stacking up the dirty glasses that Dorian brought in like a fire brigade. "Everything cool, princess?"

She couldn't resist striking a triumphant pose, stance wide and arms flexed. "I am a _winner_ with a _date_."

All Varric did was nod, eyes half-lidded and entirely too knowing. "I told you he was your type."


	2. Good to Be Alive (Hallelujah)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the bad news is I have terrible discipline and I am very slow. The good news is I do get my writing done eventually, and I have an outline for the rest! Thanks for sticking around, I appreciate it. I hope you find it worth your while.

Evelyn had made it halfway through her first lecture Friday morning before she had the horrified realization that while she'd given Cullen her number, she'd completely neglected to ask for his -- and that was, of course, a complete catastrophe. At the break, she immediately pushed her way into the hallway and called Varric.

He picked up right before it went to voicemail. "God's balls, do you know what time it is?" 

Unfortunately for him, she had no time for any whining that wasn't hers. "Varric, you have to help me."

"Are you literally on fire?" She heard a rustling noise that may or may not have been Varric making rude gestures at the phone. "Because unless you are literally on fire, I don't have to do anything at eight thirty in the fucking morning." She was almost positive he was indeed making rude gestures at the phone.

She tapped her fingers on the railing in front of her. "You have Cullen's number, right? Of course you have Cullen's number. You have everyone's number. You have to give it to me."

"Well, princess, I believe you will find that to be false."

"Wait, what?" Evelyn pulled the phone away from her ear long enough to stare at the display and make sure she hadn't called someone else by mistake because surely the real Varric would never let her down like this. "Why not?" 

"He has your number, right?"

"Yeah?"

"And you're doing dinner tomorrow?"

"Yeah." She switched ears, flipping the phone around just to have something to do with her hands, and heard him sigh.

"That means if I give you his number now, you will spend the next thirty hours sending him increasingly unhinged and ridiculous texts while you try to psych yourself out of hooking up with a dude who seems nice and would probably be pretty good for you."

Evelyn was quiet for a moment and let that sink in. "Not _all_ thirty," she finally said. "I'd sleep somewhere in there."

"Princess. Breathe. Calm the hell down. Don't you have lab today? Go to lab, forget about this for now."

The sheer sterility of the hallway mocked her with a blank canvas of everything that could possibly go wrong. "But what if --"

"No. Stop. Go bang some atoms together, and maybe if you ask really nicely someone tall, blond, and curly will bang your atoms together later on."

"Varric!" She burst into laughter so sudden and unexpected that a passerby was startled into asking if she was all right and had to be shooed away. "That's horrible!"

"There, see? Isn't that much better?"

"Actually yes, yes it is," Evelyn said after a moment, pleased to discover that this was totally true. She still wanted that number, but she felt much less like a raving freak about it. "You're a good friend, Varric."

"It's my job to save you from yourself, princess. Now go do your thing and do not ever, _ever_ call me before ten o'clock ever again."

She couldn't resist a final jab. "What if I'm literally on fire?" 

"Unless you're literally on fire."

"Thanks, man. Love you."

"Back atcha, princess."

Evelyn swiped the call off and slid the phone back into her pocket, then did her best to make it to the lab without worrying about big brown eyes and how catastrophically poorly their dinner date could possibly go. She'd already done everything but spill something directly on him, so surely that was the worst possible thing that could happen and since that wasn't entirely _that_ bad, she could totally stop worrying.

That logic was actually successful for quite some time, even through her lab work, dinner, and an evening curled up with a draft of her dissertation notes. It took some personal convincing to not needle Varric again the next morning, but she buried herself in work even though it would totally have been worth it to call him at eight again. In fact, she was focused enough on her research that when the default message chime on her phone went off around lunchtime she was startled into frowning at the unknown number. Evelyn had carefully selected different chimes for every member of her social circle so default usually meant random solicitation, but when she swiped the phone on she had to stare at the text for a few moments. 

_H = E + p V_

If that was an ad, it was the strangest one she'd ever seen. In fact, it looked less like some kind of scam and more like the formula for enthalpy, and why some unknown number would be texting her thermodynamic functions -- 

Her train of thought fragmented into a bubbling, delighted laugh, and she immediately added the new contact and thumbed out a reply. _thrmodymnics! obvs thinkin of me :D_

It was some time before a reply buzzed back, but when she read the message she understood why. _Working on coursework on break, was reading through your notes and wanted to say hello. I'm really looking forward to seeing you tonight._ Absolutely perfect spelling and grammar in a text message, and she'd seen his phone; that thing was a flip phone, for god's sake, so ancient it didn't even have a real keyboard and probably took him a million years to type on it. It was a little thing, but definitely flattering.

Also, he was looking forward to seeing her again, which was more than just flattering. _me 2! hahahahahahaaah varic can suck it :D :D_ she sent back. Limiting herself to only two emoticons was a triumph of will, but Evelyn still stared hard at her phone for what seemed like forever to resist the urge to send even more. 

The cheerful Cullen-assigned chime rang again just before Evelyn was about to snap and send a series of smileyfaces of varying hues and expressions just to break the tension. _Sorry, I have to go back to work. Is it still good for me to come by around seven?_

 _def look 4wrd 2 it_ she sent back, and then immediately set her phone aside before she could go off on one of the unhinged tangents Varric warned her against. She eyed the clock; seven meant she had time to change her clothes at least four times and do her makeup twice. It was always best to approach second-guessing one's self logically and with decent limits.

That was where her roommate found her at t-minus fifteen minutes amidst the wreckage of her closet. "Holy mighty fuck, have we been robbed?"

"No," Evelyn said miserably. "I have a date."

Sera's eyes narrowed. "You look like shite. Do I gotta stab somebody or something to get you out of it?"

Evelyn shook her head. "No! No, it's not that. It's just... I couldn't decide where to make reservations for, and then I thought maybe dropping right into a place that needed reservations wasn't the best idea for a first date even though you know how I feel about candles and wine." She shrugged, a weak flick of a movement that echoed her utter defeat. "But without knowing where I was taking him I couldn't get dressed, and then I ripped up my closet thinking I'd find something and _that_ would decide me on dinner, and now I'm babbling in my underwear and he will be here _any minute_ and my life is endless tragedy."

"Just go down there with your tits hanging out and you'll have him eating out of your hand, yeah?" For Sera, the world was very simple. Evelyn, however, responded with an affected side-eye that had Sera throwing up her hands in disgust. "Oh, for fuck's sake." She waded through the pile of clothing detritus and flung her choices into Evelyn's lap. "These jeans make your arse look amazing; keep the top three buttons on the shirt open for some _acceptable_ tit action. Order in some decent pizza, mainline Netflix, and light your own fucking candles. God, Evie."

Evelyn's sense of relief was a physical thing. "Oh my god, you're brilliant."

Sera just rolled her eyes and skipped down the stairs to her basement apartment, muttering under her breath about smart people with no goddamned sense. 

A quick shimmy into the directed jeans, some eyeliner, and a call to Fino's for an extra-large pepperoni later, the doorbell rang and the only thing that saved Evelyn from skidding around the corner and into the wall in her haste was actually having remembered to fasten the straps on her shoes. She swung the door open a little too forcefully, still in the process of catching her breath, and almost sagged against the jam. "Hey," she said, trying for exaggerated calm.

Cullen had brought flowers. He was in a tie, _again,_ and carrying flowers, a bouquet of daffodils and carnations. "Hi," he said with that quirked half-smile that made her breath catch, and she giggled like an over-shy idiot before covering her mouth to try and keep it together as he held the flowers out to her. "Thanks for not screaming this time."

Evelyn took the flowers and held the door open, gesturing for him to come in. "These are beautiful. You're not going to let me live that one down, are you?"

"Would you, if you were me?" He grinned at her, flashing a dimple and, to Evelyn's mind, playing dirty. "It was pretty memorable."

She made a disappointed noise as she wandered into the kitchen, Cullen following behind like a particularly tall and well-built duckling as she stretched on tiptoes to get a vase off the top shelf. "'Memorable' is not precisely what a girl dreams a cute boy is going to call her, you know."

Cullen reached over her shoulder and pulled it down easily, presenting it with a flourish. "You surely don't prefer forgettable? But I could come up with an entire host of adjectives if you'd like." She looked up and could have sworn that he was blushing, and he was definitely doing that thing with his hair again. "I've been thinking about it. A little. Maybe. Just these past couple of days or so."

"I'm terrible with adjectives, so you can help me out over dinner." Evelyn carried the vase, now festooned with flowers, out to the dining table and placed it carefully and precisely in the center alongside a steaming pizza box. "And I hope you are cool with Fino's pepperoni because as of twenty minutes ago I didn't even have pants on."

"Fino's delivers? That's amazing! I will never buy groceries again. And you know, I'm going to keep talking about how amazing Fino's is because it is much too soon for me to think about you not wearing pants." It was definite: Cullen was blushing, and as Evelyn turned to lay out plates on the table she saw his eyes keep snapping away from her to stare fixedly at the ceiling. Well, at least Sera had been right about the jeans.

"They don't actually deliver," Evelyn said with a grin. "But I just give them Varric's name and they fall all over themselves. It's amazing. I _make_ a damn fine pizza, but I only just came up with this idea and that isn't enough time for the dough to rise. Have a seat."

Cullen slid into the same chair he'd claimed for poker night, and Evelyn fetched Varric's shiraz bribe and a pair of glasses. When she started to pour, he shook his head. "Oh, no thank you. I don't drink."

She stared for a minute and then very slowly slid both glasses in front of her own plate. "Don't you work in a bar?"

"I work at the door, not behind the actual bar." He cleared his throat and helped himself to pizza. "For what it's worth, that's only one job. I also do some training at the gym on campus and volunteer at the VA twice a week alongside the monthly reservist duties."

"The VA? You're a vet?"

He grinned at her, nothing more than a quirk of that scarred lip, and Evelyn felt her stomach drop. "Really? That's the part you focus on?"

Evelyn saluted him with her wine glass. "I need to think about your biceps probably much the same way you need to think about my pants. The vet thing is way safer, trust me."

With a smiling nod, he conceded her point. "I joined the army right out of high school, and did three tours in Afghanistan."

Well, that answered one of Evelyn's mathematical puzzles. "And that's why you're not a teeny little freshman in Chem 101."

"That's why I'm not a teeny little freshman in Chem 101." He shrugged. "Well, I was never really teeny, even when I was little."

"Three tours, though?" She cocked her head a little, looking him over. "Jesus."

Cullen shrugged. "It was always something I wanted to do, even as a kid. Protecting people, serving the country -- it was a dream. And I kept going back because I still believed in that, even when it didn't turn out the way I expected." he kept his eyes down on his plate, only occasionally flicking his gaze up over her head, past her shoulder -- anywhere but her face. "What about you?"

Evelyn allowed the subject change because even she knew better than to pry at something so obviously uncomfortable on a first date. "Oh, I blew up part of the cellar when I was six and I haven't been out of the interesting classes in school since," she said with an airy wave, like massive explosions were no big deal. "Eventually I'll finish up my dissertation and have to decide what I want to be when I grow up, but until then chemistry tutoring is serving me pretty well."

They continued on in that vein through dinner, covering all the bases of small talk: he was in Civil Engineering, and she was in Theoretical Physics; they both had three siblings, though she had two brothers and him two sisters; his family still enjoyed tangible physical correspondence and sent letters once a week, and she had her mother's ringtone set to the Imperial March.

Cullen threw back his head and laughed, that dimple flashing again and the briefly uncomfortable moment was long gone like it'd never been. "Oh come on, she can't be that bad."

Evelyn made a face, turning down the corners of her mouth. "I'm not saying Talky Tina would trip her down the stairs or anything, but even Varric is scared of her."

He froze, and for a nanosecond she was afraid she'd said something inadvertently horrible. "Evie, did you just make a Twilight Zone reference?"

Her jaw dropped. "Did you just _get_ my Twilight Zone reference?"

"Of course! Living Doll, Telly Savalas." His grin was boyish and infectious, and Evelyn thought it was so glorious the only thing missing was its own swellingly triumphant musical score. "Man, I haven't seen those since they were airing them on PBS when I was a kid."

Oh, there was no way Evelyn was going to let that go, not when Netflix was available. "You're kidding. Come on, get your pizza, we're moving this to the living room and we are going to get our Rod Serling on." Evelyn exchanged her bottle of shiraz for two bottles of water and the living room remote, and they settled on the couch side-by-side to start up their old-school marathon. " _Time Enough At Last_ is my favorite," she murmured as though imparting some profound and precious secret.

" _Time Enough At Last_ is _everyone's_ favorite," Cullen said, laughing, and she chucked him in the shoulder.

Hours flew by as they bonded over 1960s visions of the future, taking turns pointing out unrecognizably young actors in early roles and swapping childhood PBS memories. They had gradually shifted closer over the evening until their thighs were pressed together and every nerve ending on that side of Evelyn's body felt like they were on overdrive. 

He had a way of looking directly at her while they were talking as though even the most inconsequential bullshit was interesting and important and the feeling of his regard was a weighty thing that felt not unlike a liquor buzz. It was so easy to meet his eyes and drown in that unfairly long-lashed gaze that she didn't even realize she'd been staring at him until he broke off mid-sentence to furrow his eyebrows at her. "What?"

Evelyn wanted desperately to play this cool. Her coolness was vital and paramount because Varric had an actual literal notebook of all of the ways her coolness had inevitably failed her in past relationships and this was too awesome to fuck up. Unfortunately, her small mental voice of social self-preservation was entirely silent, and so what came out of her mouth was the complete and unvarnished truth: "I would really like to kiss you right now."

Cullen's grin made her blood pound, holding as it did equal parts relief and trepidation. "Oh, thank god." Then his hand slid to the back of her neck, tangled in her hair, and pulled her close for a kiss that fuzzed out every last neuron. 

Evelyn wasn't entirely sure when, exactly, she'd made the move to straddle his lap on the sofa, her hips bracketing his and kisses progressing to moaned featherings along his jaw; nor, really was she entirely aware of when she'd started unbuttoning her shirt, with his broad hands on her waist and thumbs stroking the bared skin over her hipbones, though it was probably about the same time his tie had come loose. She was, however, completely aware of when everything came to a screeching halt: when her roommate decided to surface from the depths of her studio and declare, brightly, "Well thank fuck you wore the pretty bra."

She and Cullen jumped apart like guilty teenagers, his sharp move to the right tangling up with hers to the left and sending her sliding gracelessly to the floor. "My god, are you all right?" He reached down for her, expression utterly mortified and the tips of his ears singed red. With an aborted laugh that he shifted to a throat clearing, he gave her hand a gentle tug. "So, uh, you have a roommate?"

Evelyn held her shirt closed with one hand and pulled herself up with the other, eyes screwed tightly shut. "Is she gone?" she stage-whispered. "Yes, I have a roommate, because I am a sucker who hates living alone. Tell me she's gone, or this is a horrible nightmare that I will wake up from at any second." She cracked one eye open and grinned at him. "Well. Not the kissing part. That was more dreamy than nightmarey."

"I'm in the kitchen and I'm seeing nothing," Sera sang back with a brassy cackle and a clatter of glassware. "And now I am leaving, so you can go back to slobbering!"

Cullen glanced at the clock over the television and ruffled his hand through his hair with a sigh, embarrassed amusement still stark on his face. "I don't mean to compromise your dignity and flee the scene of our crime, but I do have to be at work in four hours."

Evelyn rebuttoned her shirt with still-fumbly fingers, not even caring that the right side was jumped up a buttonhole. "You're fine. My dignity fled years ago, just ask Varric." She paused, reached for his hand, and gave it a squeeze. "Or, actually, don't. Let me keep some of my mystique."

They walked down the hallway to the foyer hand in hand, and it was interesting to feel comfortable, safe, and also like her blood was on fire. She didn't want to open the door, but couldn't think of a respectable way to suggest he stay, preferably in her bedroom and preferably with that tie on the floor or employed in a vastly more interesting way. "Cullen," Evelyn started hesitantly. "This is going to sound a little strange, but do you own a tuxedo?"

He was quiet for a long minute. "Something like. Why?"

Evelyn tightened her grip on his hand for a moment, then released it. "I need you to be my date at a wedding, but it's white tie and it's also total bullshit."

"Of course," Cullen said immediately, not even batting an eye at her claim of bullshit. "When?"

"Um." She winced. "Next weekend?"

"Are you serious?" he asked, staring at her with raised eyebrows.

"Deadly," Evelyn said, and couldn't keep every hint of dread out of her voice. "Varric already refused to go with me. I can't go alone or my mother will try and hook me up with someone and I am _the most_ not interested in that."

Cullen cleared his throat and looked away for a moment, running a hand sheepishly through his mussed hair. "To be honest I find I'm not really interested in that either. Who's getting married?"

"My elder sister," she said, so pleased by even the most minor strains of reciprocal jealousy that she had to firmly hold the reins of her id before it did something stupid like ask him if he _liked her_ liked her.

Cullen frowned, and Evelyn had another second to mentally catalog the differences between their respective familial feelings. "And you're not _in_ the wedding?"

"Oh good god, no." She shuddered, mouth curled in exaggerated distaste. Were Sera still upstairs, Evelyn probably would have made a gagging noise to go with it just to make her laugh. "There's a week of parties with twee little cucumber sandwiches and Great Aunt Muffy and second cousins in fancy hats and I couldn't spend that much time away from the lab, so they let me off the hook for the pre-wedding crap. Just ceremony and reception, next Saturday night."

"You don't seriously have a Great Aunt Muffy," he said with a laugh. "Evie, no one seriously has a Great Aunt Muffy."

She shook her head. "No, I totally, totally do, but she's a blue-haired terror and I can't talk about her or you'll say no. I know it's last-minute and you have eleven million jobs but please say you'll come. I will personally..." Evelyn broke off, wracking her brain for something she could do to make this work. "...Get Varric to bribe someone to cover your shifts," was the best she could come up with. His loosened tie and that little triangle of skin at his throat were completely melting her brain. "Or -- whatever you need. I can't face this without someone sane and excruciatingly handsome with me."

His eyebrows flew up again in time with his deepening dimple in a self-satisfied grin. "You know you just said that out loud."

"Of course I did. I'm desperate." Evelyn shrugged, and it was her turn to look sheepish. "Look, I'll be real: it's probably going to suck, and I'm sure it's technically too soon to subject you to my family at _all_ , let alone my family in white tie, but I promise I will make it up to you."

Cullen reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear, trailing his fingertips along her cheekbone with a tantalizing gentleness that made her shiver. "I'll call in some favors. All day Saturday?" When she nodded, he leaned down and kissed her forehead like a blessing. "Please believe me when I say I am happy to spend any and all time with you."

She grabbed his tie and pulled him down for a searing kiss that might as well have made time stop entirely, and when they finally broke apart they were both having trouble catching their breath. "I had a really nice time tonight, Cullen," Evelyn said with a quiet earnestness that right before that exact moment she was pretty sure she didn't even possess. "Thank you for coming." A split-second after the words left her mouth she froze and tripped over her own tongue. " _Over._ Thank you for coming _over_. To my house. For dinner." 

When he laughed, his entire face lit up and Evelyn decided then and there that it would be one of her life's missions to flip that switch whenever she could. "I knew what you meant," he murmured, and kissed her lightly in a sweet goodbye. "I'll see you Thursday?"

"Yes, Thursday," Evelyn said. "I promise not to stalk you before then, but I will probably text you eighty billion times. You have my permission to ignore me, I've seen your phone."

Cullen grinned down at her and Evelyn fought the urge to preen like a cat. "I'll see what I can do. Sleep well, Evie."

Evelyn gave up trying to play it cool and blew him a kiss like a dork as he turned to wave at the end of her drive. Oh yeah, she was definitely going to sleep well, with the _best_ dreams.


End file.
